Saturday, March 29, 2014

Many of the Republican Party's most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race, courting him and his intimates and starting talks on fundraising strategy.

The story goes on to give several reasons for this, among them the following:

Fluent in Spanish, Bush has credibility within the Hispanic community that could help broaden his coalition.

Except that there's no evidence that this is true.

Among recent polls of the 2016 general election that mention Jeb, two surveys -- from Quinnipiac in January and Public Policy Polling earlier this month (PDF) -- break out results for Hispanic voters. Neither one suggests that Jeb prioides any particular advantage against Hillary Clinton.

In a Latino Decisions poll conducted last July (PDF), the results were even worse for Jeb:

Clinton 66%, Rubio 28%
Clinton 73%, Ryan 21%Clinton 74%, Bush 20%

In that poll, Chris Christie had a much better favorable/unfavorable rating than Jeb, and Marco Rubio topped Jeb as well, while Jeb had the highest unfavorable level. Here were the Republicans surveyed:

That Latino Decisions survey says Jeb could get more than 40% of the Hispanic vote, as could other Republicans -- but only if they play a key role in persuading Congress to pass an immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship. Doing that, however, would end any 2016 wannabe's chances of winning the Republican nomination. So it's a moot point.

It does to Righties because Jeb was Governor of Florida and Florida has Cubans so therefore all Hispanics will love Jeb. It's a slight variation on the Sarah Palin is a women ergo women will vote for McCain and Herman Cain is a 2012 Nominee for President therefor, Republicans will gain the AA vote.